When posting on Psychforums.com please try to pick the forum you think best fits your post. If your post would fit in a specialized forum (there are more than 100 forums here) then please post there rather than in the "Living With Mental Illness" forum. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter. Moderators could move your thread without notice if they feel it is fitting better into another forum.

Hey its my first post so Idk if im on the right track here making a new blog.Im just having a psychological issue, possibly mixed with a biological one, and I have a feeling its gonna get serious ..I'm almost 18, male, and in a relationship.I just feel like... I have lost touch with reality, I do get happy, just not euphoric, I do get sad, really depressed sometimes. So I know it's not depression, cuz my mood feels pretty normal, but I feel a bit emotionless, I dated a girl for a year and a half.. I thought I loved her, or at least really cared for and liked her, but one day.. she was about to get hit by a car right in front of me and I didnt even blink, I didnt even yell to warn her or anything, I wasn't shocked, it wasn't cuz im slow because I fully realized what would possibly happen I just didnt care enough. I thought this started at a late stage but if i try to go bk in time, my mom once had an asthma attack and almost died, the meds were not there, and I was nervous.. i was looking for them, running up and down the stairs I was about 15, I did care to find her the meds, but it was not emotionally driven, it was rationally driven. I don't understand why this is happening, none of my reactions or actions are emotionally driven, I get sad becuz I realize I have to, even when I cry.. I think to myself.. and I realize its so fake.. becuz im crying to convince myself that I am so emotional.. and then i actually cry for that matter. I don't feel any emotions towards my family members, my dad, a few months back, got a little bump in his mouth that he (he's a doctor) diagnosed it as a tumor that may or may not be cancer, and we were waiting for the test results.. i was crying 247.. i felt i loved him.. but when i thought rationally of why im crying, i realize i feel bad for him, at how he wasted his life without even living it and all, i wasnt sad cuz i LOVE him. I don't know what this is or if this is normal.

Even now, I have a gf, for about 7 months now, I love her with all my heart.. I care for her... but sometimes I feel like I dont.. and aside from all this emotionlessness, theres also bad memory loss, im having a pretty bad long term memory retrieval, long term potentiation, working memory is bad (short term), focus is bad, i would be talking about a topic then i think about another and I just drift off in the conversation. I'm even having a hard time talking!! yes I am bilingual, my native language is arabic, but I am so fluent in english and this never happened before.. I just started stuttering every now and then, I look back at what I said and most of it doesnt make sense, I look for words and I cant find them, so I use an extremely simple vocabulary becuz i cannot recall anything formal even tho im a second year student at a pretty tough university. I feel so detached sometimes.. I feel EXTREMELY careless, my sister dies? oh well... if I imagine i lose my whole family in a car accident, i begin thinking of how id survive, how Id deal with the mortgage, what to sell, what to keep, if i will continue studying, i think about MYSELF, I don't even become sad.. i don't even feel a bit sad.. It wasnt always like this, when I was a kid.. If i "think" of losing my mom, I cry like crazy, I used to be so emotional that my dad hated my softness, but then it was gradually going away.. starting in probably age 13.

I think its a teenage problem, becuz if it starts at age 13, wasnt always there, then it must end soon? it started to severely deteriorate right when i entered university, becuz I pretty much changed my whole environment, around that time, I began going to another city every day from 6 am till 9 pm becuz the campus is in a nearby city, I broke up with my ex and asked a new girl out, I had a plastic nose surgery, I changed my glasses shape, I changed my hairstyle, my facial hair, I completely transformed, i felt like i was doing it on purpose, i was running away from the past, i didn't like it, i wasnt abused or was in extreme depression or anything I just didnt like my life.

It just hurts so much to feel emotionless towards those you really used to love.. and those you KNOW you love.. and to feel like youre just watching people.. you dont react to anything, I get bored really fast.. Can anyone tell me what this is? a dissociative disorder? anxiety ? (I can sleep like a baby, and im not worried about anything so no) Depression? (im not depressed).. I don't feel empty, I just feel emotionless and detached, I feel like my senses are barely working and brain is barely perceiving, my gf is a passionate artist, in computer science, she has a crazy ability to focus and has a crazy memory, it brings us to many fights how I cant remember many things. I also took some vitamin pills like focus formula for my memory, i did feel slight improvement, but not too much.

Please.. someone help me with this, I cant afford to go to a psychiatrist and I dont think im having a rare disorder or borderline disorder.. I just feel like im dying.. as a human, from the inside.

ADVERTISEMENT

I skimmed, didn't read the whole thing. Your situation sounds similar to mine from what I read. Have you looked into depersonalization disorder? Short explanation: you feel like a robot, you're watching a movie, feel nothing at all, detached from your body?

"But if you play a role long enough, really commit, does it ever become real?" ~Dexter

doritocakes wrote:I skimmed, didn't read the whole thing. Your situation sounds similar to mine from what I read. Have you looked into depersonalization disorder? Short explanation: you feel like a robot, you're watching a movie, feel nothing at all, detached from your body?

I do feel robotic sometimes, which is an extreme case, I still get some slight emotion bursts where i show my girlfriend love and care.. and Yes it does feel like watching a movie, like my life is just moving by in front of me and i cant live it, i can only see it, i cannot feel, touch, hear or think deep enough about it. I feel like im not connected to my senses.. so it is a disorder? depersonalization..? is that a legit disorder or would it pass as teen age is over?

Yes, it's a disorder. I suggest you look into it. I know it can affect people at different times (for me it's constant, I know some people may only experience it during anxiety attacks, for you it could be all the time save a few minutes a day). I don't know about treatment or recovery. I've been dealing with this since I was 12. I'm 19 now, and it's just gotten worse. But as it's gotten worse, I've come to accept it more. I'm pretty sure there aren't medications for it, though. I think you have to like a 12 step program kind of thing to over-come it. Which I don't believe in, but good luck! (google has all this wonderful information)

"But if you play a role long enough, really commit, does it ever become real?" ~Dexter

That kind of reminds me of how I am but more developed. I'm a teenage girl and I feel, like I know I'm in reality. I'm not out of it. I just don't have emotion anymore. I noticed it after I stopped taking my ADHD medication a little over a year ago, when I didn't have a crush on anyone anymore, and I haven't had a real one since. While moving in to kiss recently though, I felt very faint flutters. I don't get embarrassed anymore, sad and angry at random but rare times. I'm a very laughable and weird person though, so I know I'm not depressed, but I don't know. I dont feel love. MY family to me is just people who live with me. My fav dog died recently and I didn't care when I looked at her body. I don't care about anything anymore.

Last edited by masquerade on Sun Oct 20, 2013 3:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason:Edited age, if you have any questions feel free to PM me

I've had this issue as well and I finally decided to look it up to see if it was common. I'm 19, male, and I have some anxiety/hypertension things (just in case that has something to do with it. Anyways, after a couple failed relationships, I started to look things over. I found that I never felt emotions really. I've almost had serious crashes that could have killed me and I feel nothing other than a slight adrenaline rush that lasts 10 seconds. Trying to be with women doesn't work well because I can't feel an emotional attachment to them, and I can't fake interest well enough yet :/. I don't have any close friends anymore because I feel too detached. I feel that I care about them, but the more I look, the more I realize that I do these 'social norms' because it is expected of me. I could go on...I do feel a connection sometimes, rarely, but it quickly vanishes. In general, I don't feel connected to anything and the world just seems to slip by. Maybe lots of people feel like this, but I just feel lifeless and I don't think it's normal.

This could be anything or nothing as it's impossible for anyone here to guess and obviously no one can diagnose. My advice would be to speak to your doctor, especially about the memory loss, for a full assessment. He or she can set your mind at rest or refer you for appropriate treatment if you need it.

I knew people had to know what I felt like, but we all hide it, not that we try to.. I've been feeling this for a good year now.. It's such a terrible feeling.. Everything just becomes so cold, almost borderline lifeless.

I'm currently in a relationship that will be 6 months long in december(Longest relationship I've ever been in), she has problems too, varying from depression to family issues.. I'm 17 she's turning 16 in december, and we just hit a rough patch..

I haven't been able to cry.. I've told my parents I feel empty.. But they've done nothing.. I also thought I was just going through a faze.. But I can't say it's a faze now.. I'm not trying to get the attention of others, I don't need that attention, I just don't care for that attention anymore..

I made an account to simply express you've unknowingly brought me to tears kamal.. I don't have anything near to your life, but yet I read everything, and I know every bit of those feelings.. I love my girlfriend a lot, but it's so hard not being able to express so many of these feelings, I literally become useless.. It's terrifying to me that anyone can feel this.. Because I know, they will feel nothing..

I find myself stuttering and rambling, choking up, and even sometimes freezing up.. I hate it so much, I don't feel like my lively self anymore..

But you made me cry.. I can't tell you how much I feel indebted to you.. I couldn't cry last night even when my girlfriend was crying and saying sorry, almost as if she was pleading me to cry.. But I couldn't, I couldn't even talk.. But because of you, I now know I can cry..

Thank you.. Thank you so much, even though I know I might go back to feeling this long despair again.. Thank you.

Hi, Kamal. This is my first post on Psych Forums. I think I have the same problem as you do. Only half expecting someone to have the same issue as I do, I googled "why am I emotionless" and ended up here, to find that I wasn't the only one. I am 16 nearly turning 17 and I really can't quite remember when it was that I started feeling emotionless and detached, it makes me curious to know why I don't feel much. I won't try to describe too far into detail about how I "feel" about this "emotionlessness" so I will make it simple: I feel like I am cold and ruthless even though I try not to be. I think it is possible to use this to my advantage; I can pursue my great dreams without getting stopped by the influence of those people I think I care for. Does this mean my case isn't too serious? But then this actually means I don't care about not caring. LOL, maybe I'm worse than I think?I really really wish I could find the cause... I haven't lost my curiosity yet.